Molly Arden

August 03, 2018

When votre ami Molly Arden says "Alors! J'adore le français!" or if I, on a brille pomme jour I say "English, I abhore!" -- it is not that I am unpatriotic. I am un Américain fier -- enorme, you might say.

However, when je regarde THIS video of Valérie Rouzeau balancing an assiette de bonbons -- golden sugary fondre of language and then poem and sound and all of it and done so deliciously -- I feel like weeping. Let's all commit to use two or three languages to express ourselves. A tout le moins.

Follow the English text as she reads it in French and see if you don't fall in l'amour avec her mouchoir. Someone get Molly a hanky.

May 25, 2018

Tonight’s entry begins in the small closet in the upstairs hall. There, a bag of shameful confirmation is knotted evidence of a ritual I’ve practiced since my teens. It’s difficult to discuss without the risk of sounding horribly shallow, it might be only a poet who would recognize the significance of the ceremony involved in selecting an annual summer wrapper. This ritualized spring rebirth of the self is made by way of spandex, nude lining, underwire, a few pieces of hardware.

Usually it’s one suit a year, on an indecisive year, maybe two. Always a careful combination of separates crafted into one complete experience. Fold over boy short bottom snug on the hips and a twist front scoop bikini top calls I’m ready for the waves, ride me. The low rider bikini bottom with a swing top tankini suggests golden toes this summer. Glamour ruched bottom and with string bikini top together say I’m open to starting that new manuscript and stopping the nonsense with the panties. The combining is as critical as the pairing of two shoes. Who would step out of the house in a mismatched pair of Dana Buchman flats? Coordinate a Courrèges mini with a 49ers jersey? It’s unrepentant. The next consideration is a careful selection of color – chosen, I imagine, as a parent might choose their child’s name. One year a tonal “Slate”, suggests sophistication; I am above the garish clatter of the beach. The next, an “English Rose” portends a straw bag bearing a mid-century Romance novel, a hank of bread, slices of cucumber, then “Brackish Swale”,” Yearling Gold”, and last year’s miserable “Pale Milk”. I thought men would find me lap-able, woman: creamy. It was a sheer disaster. Color is the first definition of the season. Although each winter it seems like the days will never get warmer or longer, they do and the JCrew swim catalogue always arrives with its pages stiff as crocus stems. This year, Easter evening was lingering and warm and hovered on the edge of daylight for a long time. Smoke from the neighbor’s lamb cookout came through the screen; people laughed on a lawn far down the busy street. I lounged on the sofa, the catalogue splayed on my lap. It was time to commit to the seasonal suit. I drew myself as a circle on the edge of catalogue’s slick page. From my circular self I drew radial arms: a wind-swept explorer who vacationed in cotton at the Ocean, a black sheep, tipsy daughter/sister combo at the family reunion, a bronzed sizzle-girl dripping in champagne and oil, in love with my skin, half-drunk with sun, a dull guest lecturer at the obscure Polish undergraduate writing program, fighting freckles and essays. I longed to touch upon the body’s assets, as well. It had been a good year in the gym. Could I brave a two-piece? Was I a two-piece woman? One had to consider age. I drew another line to the circle, connecting me to my age. When I was done, in addition to the miffed muff of the model sporting a modal one piece, the page was surrounded by hundreds of words modifying myself. To be completely honest, this bathing suit might never even touch water but it was fingering my Volkswagen, my good sheets, my Italian sandals, my hungry belly and two oeuvres breasts that the suit’s soft shell cups would carry, the Mead notebooks I write in, the thick wood cutting board over the sink in the kitchen, the sink itself (aproned, enamel, slippery), my tangerine leather appointment book, my brother the lawyer, my first published poem. So many notions. Were there this many last year? Would I add even more next year? Approaching it as a poet, it seemed like I might be better served by a suit that was sold in pieces of pieces; a top that was tendered by cup, strap, and stitch – not just top alone. It is an intimate encounter, this bathing suit shopping. It expresses ideas that I have about myself. It’s how I’ve always done it, though; be it a pound of strawberries, a bathing suit, red wine. With this narrative version of myself in mind I draw these items into my life. No detail, seam, nuance of color or fragrance is left unnoticed. The same is true in my writing. I wouldn’t overlook a comma. My hall closet will always harbor these suits. I delight in piecing meaning out of things, tasks, so mundane or created that others shrivel. For those differently abled folks, finding a swimsuit is no harder than slogging to the store, grabbing a blue one in their size and heading home satisfied. But I fall for the small elements; straps, darts, drape, fabric. This poet was born for separates. Let all the others buy off the rack.

April 27, 2018

I like the book by DeFoe.The movie is only so so.But I should put that more positively.The movie is not ungood.My favorite left-handed complimentis what this guy I datedsaid when he saw me naked.He said my tits were underrated

May 16, 2011

Molly is barely under her own dress today. The teeth in her mouth biting air, the teeth in her zipper biting hair. Twisted tired. Too much time in the tub tonight. Maybe it was that small thimble of gin (and then agin) Je besoined just a petit puddle to dit what je need to ecrite in mon lettre pour mon hot piment. Pour. Poor you.

Mon coco, my chou,

Today, our neighbor left a cake (de beurre) on the doorstep. In the rain.

December 09, 2009

Listening to the learned Calvuswith many an oratorical flourishcastigate the demagogue Vatinius,a man in the crowd lifted his handsin astonishment and pleasure, and said,"God, that little prick has a big mouth!"

July 23, 2009

Our old friend Molly Arden e-mails us to ask "whether anyone knows the real skinny on the Henry Louis Gates affair -- or HarvardGate as some have dubbed it." Asked to summarize what she knew of this breaking news story, Arden writes:<< Harvard professor Henry Louis ("Skip") Gates, Jr., the acclaimed scholar who heads the university's ambitious African American studies program and is among the nation's leading black literary intellectuals, was apprehended by police last Thursday in his Cambridge house. Apparently Gates, accompanied by a friend, was returning from a trip abroad and encountering difficulty opening his front door. Maybe he forgot his house keys? A nosey parker saw two black men with backpacks forcing their way into the Gates residence and called the cops. When the cops came, a shouting match ensued, and Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct and handcuffed. According to Gates, he produced his ID as requested, proving that the place belonged to him, and was mis-treated by a rogue cop. According to the police report, Gates was uncooperative, behaved abusively, and repeatedly accused arresting office Sergeant James Crowley, 42, of racial prejudice. Crowley maintains that he put Gates under arrest only after he persisted in his "tumultuous" behavior and ignored police warnings to calm down. According to a satirical piece in the Gladfly, a local humor publication, Gates brilliantly staged the whole episode as a dramatic way "to demonstrate the inherent racial bias marking police conduct in the red republic of Cambridge." The piece alleges that a passage in Gates's book Signifying Monkey describes a similar incident. (Diligent research yields no such passage.) According to one blogger, the story tells us what we already knew: that if the police come to your door, it is wise to be as nice and polite as the circumstances allow. According to a Harvard friend, everything depends on your view of Gates: is he a "pompous overpraised egomaniac" or a "major scholar, distinguished professor, prize-winning author, and academic superstar"? President Obama, acknowledging that Gates is a personal friend, said the police acted "stupidly" to arrest a man for lawfully being in his own home. But he wishes cooler heads had prevailed on both sides. A police academy administrator points out that "you can talk your way into a ticket, or into jail" by antagonizing the police on the scene. The disorderly charges against Gates have been dropped. But the blame game has just begun, and if you worked for PBS, would you assemble a panel consisting of a black law enforcement officer, Al Sharpton, and Archie Bunker?>>Further details and opinions, anyone?